Reveries by JTF

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#stillInIt is OVER + What I’m Doing Now + Photos

The last time I posted I berated myself for skipping a week. That’s awesome because this is my first post in a month. While I was enjoying my #stillInIt challenge and was happy with the results it was providing, I was getting tired of posting about it. It was getting bland and very boring. Only so many times you can post about the same workouts every week and I reached the point where I couldn’t do it anymore.

So fast forward a few weeks. I made it through week 6 of #stillInIt when I decided to switch it up. May be questionable since I only lacked two weeks until the program was complete but I hit 219lbs (goal was 215) and my body fat got down to my goal of 15% so I justified the early drop-out easily.

But there was also Boot Camp. It was supposed to be Leg Day on the Saturday of Boot Camp but decided to substitute workouts because Boot Camp was going to be all weight-lifting. And it was a killer. Aaron nearly put me in my grave with cobra push-ups, skull crushers, Arnold Press, TRX band Push-ups, rows and flies. It would be Thursday of the week after before my body was finished being sore from that one workout. Boot Camp, and Aaron, have a tendency to show me that I’m not in as good of shape as I thought I was.

So with a sore body, I decided to make Sunday an off day, and I’d resume my routine on Monday, but with the time off I was thinking more and more about this Sprint Triathlon coming up next year and when I realized I hadn’t ran in two months, I wanted to start focusing more on that. So #stillInIt was truncated officially.

So running has been added back to the routine, although it’s not much. My knee is still angry about it. It isn’t in great pain, but there’s something in there that’s pissed about going through that motion again. I’m hoping that as I put in a few more miles, it will strengthen and go away. I have a physical scheduled next month and I plan to bring it up to my doctor, but I have a feeling she’s only going to tell me a bunch of stuff I don’t want to hear. On a positive: my mile is still sub 11:00 which surprised me, considering I took two months off from the sport. That’s a serious testament to the cardiovascular workout you get at Title Boxing Club.

And yes, above I mention biking with Erin. We finally got some new bikes and have gotten them out in the last week or two for Saturday morning rides. We haven’t ridden bikes in years but we picked it back up like it had only been a few days. One thing that certainly hasn’t changed: I don’t feel any less dorky wearing a helmet. Safety first, I guess, but I feel more distracted at how un-cool I look than anything else.

The only thing I have to add this week is that Erin and I got tattoos yesterday and I have photos from inside the shop but I’m going to wait until we can get decent healed photos of our tattoos before I post them.

On Saturday we attended Makerpalooza at Pellissippi State’s Strawberry Plains campus. I went to be the muscle and just to have something to do on a Saturday but I ended up having a great time. Vendors from all walks of life were set up, not selling anything, but to just show off the stuff they work on. I was introduced to a group of guys collectively known as Knox Makers that described themselves as “a gym membership for nerds” and displayed LED light grids, homemade VR, and a Rube Goldberg-esque machine that were all made by the collective. Making my rounds I spoke with some guys that developed their own video games (and homemade controllers, apparently), another gentleman that scanned animal skulls and then used a 3D printer to make full-scale models of them, I played (and lost to) a robot in a game of Connect 4, watched a couple of high school students that had built a robot called 5508 (BOSS) that could pick up dodgeball-style rubber balls and would shoot them 15 feet in the air through a tiny “goal”, and took a business card from a retired gentleman that spends his days repairing old, unplayable guitars.

It was a pretty sweet event over all and I snapped a few photos with my 50mm lens. I’m a little bummed I didn’t format more of them for the blog but, as always, you can see more on my Flickr stream.

Hey Jennifer – Thanks for the comment and the follow! I’ve checked out your site and it seems pretty rad, but unfortunately, at the tender age of 31, I’m afraid I’m outside of your demographic. I’d still be willing to contribute if you’re willing to break the rules, though :-)